Girl, 12, forced to wear diaper in public after F on report card, police say

by Braden Goyette
NY Daily News

A Minnesota couple has been accused of shaving their 12-year-old daughter's head and forcing her to run down the street wearing a diaper after she got an F on her report card.

A neighbor called the police after a crowd of about 50 people, including men and teen boys, came out to watch the girl run up and down the street wearing only a tank top and an adult diaper, according to the criminal complaint.

The child was begging to be let back inside, but her parents locked her out, police said. Officers believed she was outside for about half an hour before police were called.

"When the officer found her, she was crying and hysterical," Police Lt. Mike Monsrud told the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

The girl's mother, 38-year-old Stephanie Broten, and her live-in boyfriend, 34-year-old Darnell Landrum, were arrested late Monday. They were charged Wednesday with malicious punishment of a child, a gross misdemeanor, and face up to a year in prison and a $3,000, according to MSNBC.

The couple had warned the preteen about the punishment she'd receive if she didn't improve at school, according to police."They told her if she didn't, they would shave her head and put her on 'diaper duty,' which I guess meant running up and down the street and cleaning up trash as a form of public humiliation," Monsrud told the Pioneer Press.

The girl said it was the third time she had been placed on "diaper duty," according to the criminal complaint. The F on her latest report card triggered the latest round.

The couple was surprised authorities were intervening in their efforts to discipline the child, according to police.

"Through the whole contact, and even on the way to jail, both were laughing and thinking it was ridiculous police would get involved in what they said was their parental decision," Monsrud told the Pioneer Press.

Cops responded to four calls in the past two years at the family's home, one of which prompted a call to child protective services, police said.